What marks true quality? I like to think that it’s a mixture of writing skill and creativity. My traditional ratings work perfectly well for most fics, but among fics which merit a 5/5 rating, there is still a wide range of variation in the type and level of creativity displayed. In other words, when all of the stories being rated are off the top of the chart, it indicates that you need a new metric.
To demonstrate this, I will be showing off three fics by nonjon which show highly unique and unconventional solutions to problems in the Wizarding World of the Harry Potter books.
First up, we have “Now Hiring: Committee for the Disposal…” which shows that, with an unforgivable curse, some 300-year-old legal precedent, and a little clever planning, you can solve the Death Eater problem by getting them legally reclassified as non-human dangerous creatures, owned by Tom Riddle, and rampaging out of his control… not to mention retroactively making your use of the unforgivable perfectly OK in the eyes of the law. Bring on the bounty hunters!
Now, one important think to keep in mind is that nonjon excells at getting away with silliness and humor so light-hearted and “cartoony” that it’s difficult to find even among professional authors. A perfect example of this is his “The DA Missions” shorts: Agent Toots and Agent Furry Fury.
In “Agent Toots“, we are presented with a hilarious account of how a little genius-level deception by Luna Lovegood convinces Voldemort to give up his pursuit of immortality. Of course, what makes it much funnier is that she’s operating as Agent Toots of the DA and the Order of the Phoenix refuses to accept that Harry and friends are considering accepting them as a “Junior DA”.
Later, in “Agent Furry Fury“, the same writing style and insane genius problem solving are used to great effect in bringing about proper changes in legislation to ensure werewolf rights. Of course, the Order members aren’t very happy about things… They are still having trouble wrapping their minds around the fact that the DA solves problems more effectively than the Order can. 🙂
Fanfiction: Authors – Focus on nonjon by Stephan Sokolow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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